BootCamp 3.0 MacBook Pro Sound and microphone problems. Here is a solution.

Starting with Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger”, apple has provided BootCamp: a support for installing Microsoft Windows operating systems on all Apple hardware equipped with an Intel processor.

Let’s face it; BootCamp quality has always been quite poor, often with outdated and crude drivers. Apple in these last few years has consistently ignored thousand of loyal customers screaming their lungs out demanding for a decent Windows support on Mac hardware. You just have to see the amount of complaints on the BootCamp Apple forums.

Anyway, the new low has been reached with the release of BootCamp 3.0, corresponding to the release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in September 2009. The sound drivers provided are not working with the new line of MacBook Pro (the mid 2009 generation, sporting a CirrusLogic sound chip). Basically the internal microphone is not working and the volume of the loudspeakers is painfully low. To add to the annoyance, the headset connector, that has an integrated optical sound output, is constantly turned on turning the MacBook into an expensive laser pointer. The trouble here is that it is virtually impossible to find generic drivers that will work on the new MacBook Pro.

Almost 5 months later there are no official solutions on sight. Instead there are a couple of well-tested handmade solutions that are working like a charm.

I will assume here that you have a partition with a flavour of Windows and BootCamp 3.0 drivers. Should you use solution 1 or solution 2? Well, it depends. Solution 2 sound drivers are slightly more up to date. With solution 2 you will also get updated drivers for the new Magic Mouse and the track-pad.

If you are new to Windows or you are a bit scared by the length of solution 2,  go with solution 1.

Solution 1 (the easy solution, quick and dirty)

Few folks at Sussex County technical School packaged a set of working drivers into an installer.

You will have to:

1) Start in BootCamp with windows

2) Download the file at:

http://www.sussex.tec.nj.us/files/CirrusAudio.10.6.1.zip

3) Unzip the file. You will get

• CirrusAudioVista32.exe
• CirrusAudioVista64.exe
• CirrusAudioXP.exe

The Windows Vista drivers will work perfectly on Windows 7. Even though Windows 7 is not officially supported by Apple. I didn’t test personally the Windows XP drivers, but I have been told that they work fine.

4) Double click on the appropriate exe file (according to your operating system) and complete the installation.

5) Reboot the MacBook Pro and enjoy Windows with sound

Solution 2 (a bit more complicated but with additional rewards)

In November 2009 Apple released BootCamp 2.2. A maintenance release of BootCamp 2 (running on Leopard) with upgraded sound, trackpad  and Magic Mouse drivers for laptops.

This sounds great, but installing BootCamp 2.2 over BootCamp 3.0 won’t work very well. We will have to manually unpack BootCamp 2.2 and extract the individual drivers.

1) Start in BootCamp with windows

2) Download the BootCamp 2.2 installation file at: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL967

3) Download and install 7-zip at http://www.7-zip.org/

The BootCamp 2.2 installation file is packaged using 7-zip

4) extract BootCamp_Update_2.2.exe with 7-zip to BootCamp_Update_2.2 on your desktop

5) You will find several files in the folder including:

• BootCampUpdate32.msp
• BootCampUpdate64.msp

Extract again with 7-zip the appropriate file according to your Windows version (32 or 64 bits)

6) You will find a folder named BootCamp24ToBootCamp223

Inside you will find several files including:

• Binary.Cirrus_Audio_Bin - New driver with working audio and microphone for  Macs with CirrusLogic chipsets (the new 2009 MacBook Pro)
• Binary.MultiTouchMouse_Bin – Magic Mouse drivers
• Binary.MultiTP_Bin – Improved multi-touch track pad drivers
• Binary.TrackPad_Bin – improved regular touchpad drivers

Unpack again each of the files above with 7-zip, each one to a different directory.

7) In each one of the directories that you just created you will find an installer: DPInst.exe. Run the different installers in older to install the different drivers.

8) Reboot your MacBook in Windows, now with working sound, microphone, MagicMouse (if you have one) and trackpad.

I hope that my explanations were not too confusing. Let me know if you encounter any problems.